jbronderbookreviews

Run from the Reaper by Cristian YoungMiller

3 stars

(Excerpt from Goodreads) It awakens; Summoned by the will of a powerful psychic, The Red Reaper forces its victims to live their darkest fantasies. If they resist, they die.

In a college town during a record cold winter break, Jon, a lonely professor, wonders the empty campus barely holding on to his sanity. Unable to stay awake during the daytime he sees a red hooded creature in the shadows at night; immediately after, his twisted desires come to life.

Searching for answers he finds Clay, a local psychic who is more than he seems, and Sarah, a gorgeous expert on the underworld who has depraved secrets of her own.

Chased by demons and with the Red Reaper at every turn, the three must face their fears, survive its relentless attacks, and find a way to escape from the Reaper.

The story starts out with a man running for his life. The moment he stops, everything goes dark. He knows he has to keep running, to stop is to die. But when he has his legs cut off in an auto accident, he is strangely accepting. Jon, one of the people that come upon the accident finds it strange how accepting the guy is about loosing his legs when his life revolved around running.

Jon wants to find out what prompts that kind of reaction. He starts becoming obsessed with it. He even goes to Clay, a psychic that his student Sarah recommends. Clay points out that if you really want something, it will find a way of happening. Jon is not impressed with that answer.

But strange things start happening. He sees glimpses of a red reaper, the dog he adopts goes crazy, and then he starts loosing time. He comes to and finds out that he has lost three days and is accused of assaulting a student. Now he is on the hunt to stay alive.

This is a quick read that shows us how sometimes what we wish for may not be what we really want. The possibilities and the twists kept me wondering where this was going. I liked the idea of the red reaper. It’s a good twist from what we commonly think of when someone says reaper.

I have to say that there was a couple times that I got a little lost but I think that was because Jon had lost time. I was confused with the black reapers. The red reaper is trying to give Jon what he desires but the black ones are trying to kill him. Plus there were several black reapers floating around and only one red.

Overall, I liked this story. It feels like a first story and rough around the edges, but if you like thrillers, I think you might like this story. I do have another story of Cristian and after reading Run from the Reaper, I am excited to see what happens in that story.

I received this for free from the Library Thing Member Giveaway in exchange for an honest review.